


one day they'll call you champion

by Lizhly



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Peeta dies a lot actually, Probably ooc, Time Loop, peeta dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 04:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15656016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizhly/pseuds/Lizhly
Summary: Peeta dies before he can even turn a year old.  His story does not end here.





	one day they'll call you champion

Here is what people notices about Peeta Mellark:

He is a child. They notice his blond curls and his wide blue eyes, and maybe they recognize him, just a little bit, as one of the baker’s children.  But, he is, after all, a child, and children are not noticeable in quite the same way that adults are. The fact that he is _quiet_ and _calm_ makes him even more easy to look over.

There are exceptions, of course. Peeta always manages to cross into the uncanny valley whenever he is confronted with death.  He is too quiet, too calm, too accepting. Peeta winces, just a bit, when he watches his first mandatory viewing of the games, but that’s as extreme as his reactions ever get.  

It is not natural that a child watch the entire thing without even a scream.

He watches it in the town square with a frown, and when he goes home, sometimes he turns on the shuddering excuse of a television screen inherited from a generation back for another look.  Only sometimes - since sometimes, his mother, face drained of color, tells him _that’s enough_ and _why do you even want to watch_ and _dear - dear, is there something wrong with him?_

At that, Peeta blinks owlishly.  There is nothing wrong with him. He rather thinks that there’s something wrong with everyone else.

The problem is that he is an intelligent child.  Intelligence can be _adorably_ precocious.  But there is a level of experience, of proficiency, that can become terrifying.

He furrows his brows, and very carefully does not ask, “Why are people afraid of death?”

Well.  That’s almost _philosophy_.

He is _so_ young, but contrary to what would be common belief, he _understands_ death.  He is intimately familiar with death.  That gut-churning moment of _my life is ending_  and _I don’t think I can hold on any longer_ and _I can feel my heart stop beating -_

Peeta Mellark is a child.  Peeta Mellark is very young, but nowhere near as young as he looks.

Peeta Mellark had not, is not, will never be, afraid of death.  

* * *

The year he is born, fluttering snow begins drifting its way down in October.  District Twelve looks up the little wisps of white and cold and know that this winter will be hell.

Things are hard enough for Twelve to begin with.  But in winter, minimal chances of survival dwindle down to zero.  And this winter is early, which means absolutely no one is prepared.  No one has stocked up enough coal or wood, no one has managed to preserve and hoard all the food they need.  They hadn’t even the chance to make an attempt.

Peeta Mellark has the unfortunate luck to born that year, right in the middle of the harshest winter Twelve's had in quite a while. He comes into the world quiet, no screams or cries. Not even a whimper.  Something is undeniably wrong.

The baby is alive, there's no mistaking that. But the rise and fall of his chest is so weak, his breath so thin and rattling.  His skin never shifts a shade away from pale, pale snow. He’s not a strong child, that little boy. Not the strength to cry, not the strength to open his eyes, perhaps not even the strength to live.

No one is very surprised when he dies. If there's anything to be said, he still lives remarkably long. He makes it through the winter, outlives spring, and reaches summer, managing to make his first Reaping, even. And then he catches the flu, and his family knows very well that he won't be able to survive it.

A couple days after the Reaping, they lower his tiny-doll body into the ground and mourn.

What a shame.

* * *

 

The morning of the Reaping, Peeta wakes up screaming.

The family is - well, delighted might be too much of a stretch since Peeta starts up his wailing just past midnight, in the very wee hours of the morning - pleased, if nothing else. Their youngest child is finally acting like he's alive, finally acting like he isn't going to fall apart any second.

But just because he can make sound now doesn’t mean he is any better.  No one is very surprised when he dies. He makes it a little longer, this time, before he turns the wrong direction in his sleep and he dies, smothered to death.

What a shame.

* * *

 

The morning of the Reaping, Peeta wakes up screaming.  He takes great, panting gasps of breath, like he hadn’t had enough in a very long time.

It’s strange, but his family is tentatively pleased.  But Peeta is still a sickly child. No one is very surprised when he dies.

What a shame.

* * *

 

In District Twelve, children have a high mortality rate.

Peeta Mellark only proves it, as he dies again and again.

The very first time, he dies of sickness. The second, he’s found cold, quiet and still in his bed. The third, he’s inhaled too much coal dust.  The fourth time, too much flour. The fifth time, there simply hadn’t been enough oxygen in the room. The sixth time, his brothers dropped him.

And so on, and so on.  Ad infinitum.

He does not, cannot remember all of this, but he dies (and comes back) over 19 times before his first birthday.

After - well, _after_ is when he starts remembering.  After is when he starts figuring out the rules.  So what if he’s barely more than an infant? Time is experience is knowledge.

Peeta learns.  

By the time most people would say that he is two years old, he knows.  If he can just live until another Reaping passes, that’s one year that he’s allowed to get bigger, stronger, _older_.  He gets smarter and wiser with each death.  

Two years old, and to anyone watching him, Peeta doesn’t _just_ break the learning curve, he shatters it and grinds it down to fine dust.  

Such an intelligent child. So smart.  So mature.

Infants are not supposed to be _mature_ .  Children are not supposed to look at you with too-old eyes, utterly still and calm and quiet.  People say all the time, how children are to be seen and not heard, but to have a child actually _behave_ as such, pick out their words thoughtfully and with careful precision -

Well.  It’s unnatural, at the least.

Time is experience is knowledge, and by all means, Peeta should have none of the above. But to him, this is just the way things _are_.  He remembers things no one else seems to, and death is nothing more than temporary pain and an annoyance.

* * *

Peeta grows up.  He learns to cry when he gets hurt, learns to smile and lie, because no one wants to hear a messy, blood-splattered truth from him.

He dies and dies and dies and _dies_.  And he never stops coming back to soft murmuring, quiet weeping, to a brightly colored District escort holding the hands of two doomed children aloft.

And then he gets Reaped.  

**Author's Note:**

> Was digging through my WIPs and found this. Probably around three or four years old now. So, I rewrote some bits, did some editing, and now, here it is.  
> The inspiration: a child cannot and should not, hold on to a crush with someone he's never talked to for ten years. It's a little obsessive and creepy. So I tried to make more sense of it. Like, if it hadn't been ten years on Peeta's end. Warning you here, my dudes, I am going to wreak merry havoc with canon. I read this absolutely scathing sporking that pointed out certain issues with the series, so I am pretty much going to write around them and just cherry-pick the bits I like. It'll be fun!


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